Who is the top prospect on the Giants farm?
On Monday, we began a time-honored McCovey Chronicles tradition: another Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List, which will see us rank the top 44 prospects in the San Francisco Giants organization. You can read the introduction to this year’s CPL, and get a refresher on the rules, here.
And now we start ranking. We begin with seven nominees for the coveted title of “best prospect on the farm,” even though we all know who is going to win. I don’t think there’s been a year since the CPL started where it’s been so abundantly clear as to who the top prospect in the organization is, which is a testament both to the season Bryce Eldridge had, and the amount of prospects the Giants graduated last year.
But it is election season, so we still must honor the voting process. Now’s our chance to see how many contrarians will actually pretend that someone other than Eldridge is deserving of this title.
No. 1 prospect nominees
Rayner Arias — 18.6-year old CF — .735 OPS/98 wRC+ in ACL (105 PA)
Bryce Eldridge — 20.0-year old 1B — .540 OPS/46 wRC+ in AAA (35 PA); .784 OPS/116 wRC+ in AA (40 PA); 1.060 OPS/187 wRC+ in High-A (215 PA); .801 OPS/107 wRC+ in Low-A (229 PA)
Josuar de Jesus González — 17.0-year old SS — yet to debut
Jhonny Level — 17.7-year old SS — .909 OPS/140 wRC+ in DSL (215 PA)
James Tibbs III — 22.1-year old OF — .455 OPS/31 wRC+ in High-A (74 PA); .941 OPS/154 wRC+ in Low-A (42 PA)
Carson Whisenhunt — 24.0-year old LHP — 5.42 ERA/4.66 FIP in AAA (104.2 IP)
Joe Whitman — 23.1-year old LHP — 4.96 ERA/3.56 FIP in High-A (52.2 IP); 4.29 ERA/4.05 FIP in Low-A (50.1 IP)
Note: Each player’s first name links to their Baseball-Reference page, and their last name links to their Fangraphs page.